Event

On Thursday, November 9, Martin Kurzweil and Wendell Pritchett, Provost and Presidential Professor of Law and Education at the University of Pennsylvania, are speaking on "Quality Assurance in U.S. Higher Education: The Current Landscape and Principles for Reform." The talk will be held in the Bernard Segal Moot Court Room at Penn Law at noon. From the event website: The U.S. system of higher education continues to be vital to our country, but…

Blog

I was honored to be asked to testify before the House of Representatives’ Committee on House Administration, as part of a hearing on “Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond.” The hearing also included testimony from Robin Dale of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and R. Eric Petersen of the Congressional Research Service. A video of the hearing is included below along with the written testimony I submitted to the…

Event

On Wednesday, October 11, at 10:30 am, Roger Schonfeld will testify before the House of Representatives' Committee on House Administration, as part of a hearing on “Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond." Roger, who has led two major consulting projects focused on structural challenges facing the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and how its vital work can be sustained, will focus his remarks on factors related to the long-term preservation of…

Blog

The U.S. quality assurance system—focused mainly on accreditation as a threshold for federal financial aid eligibility—has done a poor job of assuring quality. Barely 60 percent of first-time students complete a bachelor’s degree and 40 percent complete an associate’s degree at the institution where they started. These overall results mask a wide range of outcomes across institutions. As a result, many students, parents, and policymakers question the value of their…

Publication

The American higher education sector is diverse and creative. In 2014-15, the sector produced over 1 million associate’s degrees, nearly 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees, over 758,000 master’s degrees, and over 178,000 doctoral degrees.[1] The world leader in innovation for decades, the sector continues to produce cutting edge research and contributes mightily to the American economy. Recent estimates concluded …

Event

Department chairs play a critical role in their institutions, helping to make important hiring and budget decisions and increasingly playing a crucial role in innovations around teaching, learning, and technology. Yet, while the department chair is typically the first rung on the ladder to senior leadership in academia, many take on the role without the necessary training or mentorship. The Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership and Ithaka S+R have…

Blog

As colleges and universities continue to develop and invest in online courses, have their policies kept pace? In An Academic Policy Framework for Technology-Mediated Content, published today, authors Randal C. Picker, Lawrence S. Bacow, and Nancy Kopans argue that clear policies—on governance, conflicts of interest, and intellectual property—are critical to promoting innovation in the development of new educational technologies. As the authors caution “without adequate policies, the development of potentially…

Publication

I. Introduction In this report, we recommend a set of policies regarding governance, conflicts of interest, conflicts of commitment, and intellectual property to guide academic institutions in developing ways to create and promote technologically-mediated content. These policies are intended to encourage innovation in the development of new educational technologies by creating incentives for both institutions and their faculty …

Blog

A diverse group of 85 higher education leaders and experts identified insufficient state funding of public institutions of higher education as the most significant obstacle to improving American students’ postsecondary outcomes. But aside from the shortfall in that critical public investment, respondents to the Spring 2016 Ithaka S+R Higher Ed Insights Survey flagged institutional policies, practices, and culture as the greatest impediments to improving student success. The most promising solutions…

Publication

Introduction In fall 2015, Ithaka S+R invited a select group of higher education administrators and experts to join a panel of advisors. One activity of the panel, which currently consists of 111 members with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, is to take part in semi-annual surveys on issues of national importance in higher education. The first of these surveys was …

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Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit service that helps the academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change. We deliver strategic guidance, research, and publications through two program areas: Educational Transformation and Libraries & Scholarly Communication.